The critics have not spared any of their ammunition in bashing the latest instalment of director Michael Bay’s epic film trilogy - Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The iron pen of The New York Times tore into the multimillion dollar film as full of “excess and redundancy, taking place in a universe full of fire and metal and purged of nuance.” That may well be, but even the reviewers have not denied that the series has always had a crowning jewel - nigh irreplaceable by any shiny car/robot or any degree of CG carnage – that more than makes up for any lack of precious cinematic “nuance”: the nubile sidekick. Although the hoity-toity sourpusses of journalism have - quite obviously - not even condescended to voice their opinions on this aspect, word on the street was clearly hungry for a glimpse at actress Megan Fox’s replacement: the British starlet and supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Indeed, Ms Huntington-Whiteley clearly has not disappointed her director, and her film’s gross revenue (almost 700 million dollars worldwide - so far) doesn’t seem to indicate that the audience disagrees.

Not good enough. Better give the effects team a week or two, and get that hot babe to stand in front... NO! DOWN MICHAEL! DOWN!

Failing to consider the aforementioned factors, many critics have berated Ms Huntington-Whiteley’s acting and compared her unfavourably to her predecessor. As understandable such points may be, and making it clear that this is Ms Huntington-Whiteley’s first acting role, it is yet another fault of the reviewers that they have failed to grasp the very spirit of Transformers: ensuring that its predominantly male cinematic audience receives its onscreen visual banquet. This is precisely what has made this trilogy so popular, and director Michael Bay has not been at all slow on the uptake. Having started off the first film in the trilogy with a considerable human dimension (botched or not), Bay has realized precisely what the movie going public was asking of Transformers – cars, soldiers, American flags, robots, violence, and voluptuous females. Judging from the later movies, Bay has internalised such demands flawlessly and has embodied them in his projects with expert execution. In this respect, Ms Huntington-Whiteley’s acting skills do not detract from the film at all. On the contrary, her relative (to Megan Fox in the previous films) lack of dialogue brings her generosity in flaunting her – very aesthetically pleasant - body, together with ponderous American military action and beautifully rendered multi-coloured robots flipping about, into perfect focus for the audience. This all adds up in the final product to nothing short of a visual tour de force. It is in debt to Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s insight into the very fibre of Transformers that - at this rate - this movie will probably manage to be a bigger blockbuster than even its predecessors (with Ms Megan Fox).